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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Senate GOP Rejects Efforts to Kill Trump's $1.8B "Anti- Weaponization" Fund; Interview with Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA); NY Times: Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall "Unsettling" Behavior with; Alabama Family Pleads For Return Of Missing Son; Anthropic Calls For Pause Of Global AI Development; Fans Of Far-Right Streamer Nick Fuentes Talk To CNN. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired June 04, 2026 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: ...many weeks before an outbreak was declared, the mayor told us that there are high rates of tuberculosis and malaria in his region. Some of the symptoms of those can be quite similar to the Ebola virus. But beyond that, when they were using test kits to test for Ebola, those test kits were testing for the Zaire Strain, which is a different strain of Ebola. Truly Erin, it was a perfect storm.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Clarissa Ward thank you so much and Clarissa they're on the ground to bring you the story. Thanks for joining us, AC360 starts now.

[20:00:40]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Good evening from the newsroom. Topping our CNN Global coverage tonight, it was the single biggest issue behind a Republican Senate rebellion against the President and acting attorney General Todd Blanche who was the public face of it. The nearly $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund, which Blanche would not say was off limits to violent January 6th felons like these.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill Police Officers be eligible for this fund.

TODD BLANCHE, ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, as it makes plain anybody is --

VAN HOLLEN: Just let me know if they're eligible for the fund?

BLANCHE: As was made plain yesterday, anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they were victim of weaponization.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, that was May 19th, a week later, the payout scheme and the idea of giving taxpayer money, possibly to violent insurrectionists had become so politically toxic, it derailed Senate legislation, funding for ICE and the Border Patrol.

Today, though, when given a chance to kill the fund for good. Not enough Republican senators actually took that chance. Just three, voted yes on a democratic measure to eliminate it. Susan Collins, Alaska's Dan Sullivan and Jon Husted of Ohio. Other Republican critics of the fund, Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski, voted no. So did Mitch McConnell though he had been critical of the fund, what he called a slush fund to pay people who assault cops.

Now, under different circumstances, the measure that died today might not have mattered that much. After all, a federal judge last week put the fund on hold, and the administration had seemingly given up on it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLANCHE: We are not moving forward with the fund.

REP. GRACE MENG (D-NY): Not moving forward, ever.

BLANCHE: Correct.

MENG: Oh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So, that was announced two days ago, and it sounded sort of definitive. Then came several statements from the President, most recently, this one yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN'S CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT AND THE ANCHOR OF "THE SOURCE": Excuse me, Mr. President, just to clarify on what you were asked earlier, is the $1.8 billion DOJ fund dead or is it on hold?

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It's -- I'd have to ask the lawyers, I don't know. I know one thing, the weaponization -- are you talking about the weaponization fund?

COLLINS: Yes, what's your decision?

TRUMP: The weaponization fund, as far as I'm concerned, was a beautiful thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer cited those remarks last night, calling them, "exactly why" todays failed legislation was needed. Not enough Republicans obviously agreed. And now the President is giving Todd Blanche a promotion. He previewed it in a video posted on social media late last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He's acting attorney general, tomorrow I'm instructing Dan and everybody else that's involved in that very complicated process, which is going to go, I think, very quickly, that we are going to make him permanent attorney general.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So now the Senate will have its say on him, and some Republicans are signaling doubts. Majority Leader Thune told CNN's Manu Raju today that there that in this political environment, "nothing is a safe or sure bet."

Outgoing Republican Thom Tillis said he'd oppose the nomination if Blanche fails to condemn January 6th-ers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS, (R-NC) They better not have said for one minute that the people that, that beat up police officers like these right down here were righteous people.

I don't vote for people just because I like them. I vote for them because they meet my criteria and one of my criteria is no equivocation on January 6th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Texas Senator John Cornyn, whom the President just drove out of office by supporting his primary opponent, said he's undecided. Blanche, you'll recall, was already the focus of controversy for approving the deal that came along with the so-called weaponization fund, exempting the President and his family from future IRS probes.

Also, as the public face the President's retribution campaign against political enemies, most notably the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. He has also drawn scrutiny for his unprecedented at the time interview with sex offender and Jeffrey Epstein accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was subsequently transferred to a lower security detention facility.

Joining me now, Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, he introduced bipartisan legislation in the house aimed at blocking the DOJ from using federal money to pay out claims through the so- called anti-weaponization fund. Congressman, what does it say to you that your Republican colleagues in the Senate rejected multiple efforts to officially scrap this so-called anti-weaponization fund?

REP. BRIAN FITZPATRICK (R-PA): Yes, Anderson, I didn't see the language or the vote count. You know, I hope that they, they're still over there now. They got a lot of votes ahead of them. So, I hope this comes back up and they can agree to language. But the bottom line is, you know, we got to mind our business here in the House and take care of business here in the House, and we're going to do that.

Myself and Tom Suozzi have legislation that would not only fix the individual instance with this fund, but we'll also go back and tackle the 1956 bill that allowed this all to transpire. The Federal Judgment Act Fund. It's a 1956 bill, it's been amended many times in the 60s, all in the wrong direction, giving authority away from Congress towards the executive branch, getting rid of the $100,000.00 cap, allowing for prewired appropriations rather than after the fact settlement funds. And it gives massive discretion to the attorney general, which is right for abuse that's exactly what happened here.

[20:05:53]

This was an abuse of discretion by the acting attorney general. So, in addition to stopping this individual settlement, we got to go back and fix the law that allowed this to happen in the first place.

COOPER: Does it concern you that the President is still talking about how good the idea is? He said that to our Kaitlan Collins yesterday and the acting Attorney General, Tom Blanche, now, the President's choice to be the attorney general on a permanent basis. He's refusing to put anything in writing about the fate of the fund, even though he says it's not moving forward. Should Americans believe him?

FITZPATRICK: That's why we need legislation to ensure that we don't need to take anybody for their word, right? I mean, it's absurd that this was even advanced to begin with. I was apoplectic when I heard about this and, you know, jumped right on it. It was the first to introduce legislation and currently the only one introduced legislation. It is bipartisan, like everything we do. And we're not going to stop. We're going to continue to push this because there is a flaw in the enabling legislation that allowed it to be exploited in this instance. Thankfully, they've pulled back, they've given their word. But we need to solidify this in law going forward.

COOPER: Do you think Mr. Blanche will be able to get confirmed by the Senate as attorney general?

FITZPATRICK: That's a question for the Senators who get a vote. I think that he showed a grave error in judgment and abused his discretion as the acting attorney general, in advancing that. So, that would that would be a deal breaker for me, I can tell you that.

COOPER: You would not I mean, it's not your vote, but you would not want him to be the attorney general?

FITZPATRICK: Anderson, I think what he attempted to do here is, is outrageous, I really do. It's an abuse of discretion and we need people that are that are mindful of their discretion, that they have as prosecutors in every prosecutorial role across the country and certainly the chief law enforcement officer of the land.

COOPER: Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

Joining me now is journalist and co-founder of "Lift Our Voices," Gretchen Carlson, former Obama White House special adviser. Van Jones, former Trump campaign adviser David Urban and former federal prosecutor and CNN senior legal analyst, Elie Honig.

David, do you think the fund could complicate or even sink Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general? DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, look, Anderson, I agree with Majority Leader Thune when he said nothing, take nothing for granted these days in the Senate. Thom Tillis is not a for sure yes vote. You have Lisa Murkowski, a lot of others who always question the President. He's going to have to answer, lot of tough questions and satisfy a lot of Republican Senators to get their votes. And so, I think it's a jump ball, it's a 50/50 shot, he gets done at this point, in my opinion.

COOPER: Gretchen, what do you think?

GRETCHEN CARLSON, JOURNALIST AND FOUNDER OF "LIFT OUR VOICES": Look, the Senate Judiciary Committee holds the power for this nomination. You have three people on there who are Republicans who are right now going to probably say no, if this fund is not quashed. You have Senator Thom Tillis on judiciary. You have Senator John Cornyn, who Trump snubbed now, who will no longer be a Senator in Texas. You have Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana, who was very up in the air today about how he was going to vote for this. That is three Republicans on Senate Judiciary. That is the lifeblood of Todd Blanche becoming attorney general. Unless he scraps this fund in writing, there is no way in hell he will ever be attorney general.

COOPER: Van, what do you think?

VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And thank goodness. Wouldn't it be great if somebody was just too much of a Trump toady to get support from the Republican Party? And this guy has gone into every sock drawer, gone up under the filing cabinet trying to find laws to abuse and mistreat from. I mean, and now he wants to be attorney general. He is the --

COOPER: I mean, he was the President's personal attorney.

JONES: He's his personal attorney doing all kind of dirt for him before he became President and now, he thinks he has the same job. He's trying to be the head of the Department of Justice, not the department of Donald Trump's whims and fantasies and vengeance and nonsense.

And so, I think it would be fantastic if for once, somebody was too much of a Trump toady to get this Republican party to endorse and to embrace and to promote. At some point, it's got to stop.

COOPER: Elie, you've known worked with Todd Blanche for many years, and what your reaction is to his upcoming nomination.

[20:10:14]

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: You know, Anderson, if you had told me 20 years ago when I first met Todd and started working with him, that he'd be nominated for attorney general someday, or if you told me that 10 years ago or two years ago, I would have said great he's an excellent prosecutor, he does things the right way. He understands what DOJ is all about. Even when Todd Blanche was defending Donald Trump in those criminal prosecutions, you'll remember I publicly defended Todd Blanche. I said he was doing his job as a defense lawyer; he's doing it well and vigorously.

However, and I wish this was not the case, there has been a stark turnabout in the last year-and-a-half when Blanche has been the deputy A.G. and I think he's made decisions that fall into serious question, his judgement and his independence.

This anti-weaponization fund is the most recent, most obvious example but there's so many examples before. That is handling of the Epstein files and Ghislaine, his blessing of these politically charged weaponization prosecutions. And so, all of those give me real pause about whether I would still think Todd Blanche can do the job effectively and independently.

COOPER: David, if the Senate ultimately does pass an amendment ruling out this fund, you know, as you pointed out the other day, people can still, you know, who feel they've been wronged by the government can sue the government. But do you think the administration or President Trump will try to find another way to, you know, give taxpayer money to the people who came out, you know, and broke into the Capitol?

URBAN: Yes, I sure hope not, Anderson. Again, the President's the king of finding 80/20 issues. He loves finding 80/20 issues. He was the master of it in the last election cycle. This is a 20/80 issue; Americans do not want to see people who beat police officers getting public funds as some sort of reward for their bad acts. I mean, every time you put up this video, you know, it makes me sick to my stomach.

Republicans are the party of law and order. We, you know, we back the blue, we support police. In all instances, not just this instance when you have some Trump supporters who are bad actors who decide to beat police officers with flagpoles and with fire extinguishers, they should receive zero dollars. This administration should say it and voters do not want to see it. So, if the President continues down this path, I think there's bigger consequences in November than Republicans understand.

CARLSON: I think something really important to mention here, Anderson, is that 100 of the 1,500 January 6th insurrectionists who Trump pardoned have now consequently been nabbed for other crimes, 100 of them, from homicide to child molestation. So, we're not just talking about great actors here who Trump gave a pass to. This wasn't even questionable behavior.

So, I think for Todd Blanche to not be able to ever say specifically that this fund would not go to people like that, that is going to be the deal breaker.

COOPER: Then as acting Attorney General Blanche has pursued new cases against, I mean, against Comey. I mean, he's essentially doing exactly what the President wants.

JONES: Look for 250 years, we have had a Department of Justice that very rarely wandered into this kind of territory. And when it happened, with Nixon, you know, it was terrible.

COOPER: I mean, you know, others will point at Kennedy and say, well, look, his brother was the attorney general.

JONES: His brother was the attorney general, but he wasn't going after his brother's enemies and trying to put him in jail and that kind of stuff. So, look, we haven't had a perfect union. We've tried to have a more perfect union every generation, but we resolved this in the early 70s that we wanted the Department of Justice to be a clean glove, hands off. Not the personal vendetta machine for a sitting President.

Trump has decided he wants to do something very different and the Republican Party, has to decide if they want to represent this. There's an opportunity for people to say, could you give us somebody who actually is going to respect the rule of law, not abuse the office, not be a sock puppet for the President? And this would be a great time for people who say they are constitutional conservatives.

They were beating up Barack Obama for eight years, saying they were constitutional conservatives. I'd like to see some tonight.

COOPER: Elie, according to a transcript of her interview with the House Oversight Committee, the former Attorney General, Pam Bondi, told lawmakers that his deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, was, "in charge of the process and the entire release of the Epstein files." Do you think that's going to be a problem for him going forward in this process?

HONIG: For sure, the timing on that could not possibly have been worse for Todd Blanche to come out today. And it's not as if Pam Bondi was trying to throw Todd Blanche under the bus, so to speak, because if you look at that transcript, she praises Todd Blanche over and over.

Now, it appeared at the time as the whole Epstein files saga was unfolding, that Blanche was, in fact, the one who was running it. He was the one who was testifying and giving the press conferences.

Bondi was nowhere to be seen, but she made entirely clear this was Todd Blanche's show. And issue one, when Todd comes up for his nomination, is going to be this weaponization fund. And issue two is going to be the Epstein files, and he can't run and hide from it now.

[20:15:22]

COOPER: Yes, Elie Honig. Thanks very much, everyone else, stick around. I want to get your take on new reporting about Maine Democratic Senate hopeful Graham Platner, who is already under scrutiny for sexting women, not his wife. The latest report having to do with new reporting from "The New York Times" about how several former girlfriends say he treated them during their relationships.

Also tonight, the search for an American college student, Weston Higginbotham, who disappeared while on a family vacation in Japan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY HIGGINBOTHAM, MOTHER OF JAMES "WESTON" HIGGINBOTHAM: I need him back because a family of three is not the Higginbothams. We're a family of four. We're a family of four. (END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:21:05]

COOPER: Maine Democratic Senate Candidate Graham Platner is once again facing a controversial story regarding his past involvement with women. This time, the allegations are in a "New York Times" article with the headline: "Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall Unsettling Behavior."

The article goes on to say that three women described, "...volatile and toxic relationships that were unsettling and at times emotionally wrenching. Mr. Platner could be charming and charismatic, they recalled in interviews, but also demeaning to women and in at least one case, even physically threatening. He drank heavily and was regularly unfaithful."

"The Times" story also mentions that some of the women questioned Platner insistence that he did not know that his tattoo was a Nazi symbol until it came up in the campaign. One woman even said he taught her the German name for it, years earlier, Totenkopf which death's head, which dates back to the Prussian military but was adopted by the S.S. during the Nazi's reign.

CNN reached out to Mr. Platner about the allegations and he responded in a statement that reads, "Throughout this campaign, I've been open about what was a very dark period of my life where I struggled with undiagnosed PTSD too often self-medicated with alcohol, and was a far from perfect boyfriend. I take responsibility for all of that and wish I had been better. Any characterization beyond that is false and I believe politically motivated. I'm not proud of who I was then, but I am proud of the work I've done since and the movement we are building in Maine."

Back now with our panel, Gretchen Carlson, Van Jones, and David Urban. Gretchen, what's your reaction to this reporting?

CARLSON: Yes, look, mistreatment of women is about power, it's not about politics. So, I mean, I found this out ten years ago when I came forward at Fox about sexual harassment there. I mean, that happened to be at Fox, which people see as Republican. But then we saw other titans fall who were on the Democratic side. So, this kind of behavior is about power over people, not about politics. And so, how do we parlay that then into the political system? We should have both parties denigrating anyone in either party who behaves in such a way.

You know, we have seen some Democrats come forward to say that maybe, you know, Graham Platner has to reexamine his behavior, and they're at least calling it out. I would like to see the same thing coming from Republicans with regard to Donald Trump. But overall, I think both parties need to be honest and take accountability. When you have a bad actor inside of a party, you have to call it out.

COOPER: David Urban, your reaction? URBAN; Come on, Gretchen, call it out. This guy's disgusting. Shame on Kirsten Gillibrand, the chair of the DSCC for standing with this guy. Kirsten Gillibrand took and axe --

CARLSON: I didn't say I was standing with him.

URBAN: -- at Al Franken. No, listen, I said Kirsten Gillibrand, I'm not -- I would hope for more outrage from you Gretchen. Kirsten Gillibrand took an axe to Al Franken for making a terrible joke. It was a bad joke and bad taste, but went to the floor and demanded his head on a pike. And now she's standing with this guy because she's a DSCC chair. What's the difference between Mr. Swalwell, the terrible person he is? And Graham Platner, an even worse person who uses it. What kind of person is --

CARLSON: What about Donald Trump?

URBAN: Gretchen, I've been on this network repeatedly. There's plenty of tape me saying he's done bad things and should apologize.

CARLSON: I don't know why you're angry at me.

URBAN; You're looking at the wrong guy. I'm not angry at you, Gretchen. I said, shame on Kirsten Gillibrand for allowing this guy to stand. I think that he should resign from this race immediately or maybe not immediately. Maybe he should stay in until he gets nominated so Republicans can beat the heck out of him. But he's a terrible person. And for him to somehow say he's, you know, oh, this didn't not really matter. It's kind of try to soft play it and peddle it.

I mean, it is terrible. Democrats need to condemn it and come back and come on now. I don't know how anybody can say what Swalwell did is terrible. But Graham Platner is fine. That's not even the worst part of the story.

COOPER: Let me ask --

URBAN: -- raping intruders, I mean, there's so many things wrong with the guy.

COOPER: Yes, and here, Democratic Senator John Fetterman in Pennsylvania criticized him not for the first time, saying he's, "behaving in a degenerate way, urging voters to back" Janet Mills, Maines Governor, in Tuesdays primary, what do you think, Van?

JONES: You know, it's a moment of truth in this party. This is tough. You know, I think that I hear people in our party and they're saying, why are we so tough on our bad guys when the Republicans are so soft on their bad guys?

And so, you know, that's the kind of stuff when you when you're a parent, you struggle with that because it's like, look, were running this house. We're not running the house across the street. We're not running the neighbor's house. We're running this House. And so, what bothers me about what he's done is not just the things that are being reported about him, but that his stories just don't hold up. He said that he got the stuff under control years ago, and some of this stuff is not years ago, and people are concerned that there's more to come. Look, I don't set judgment of anybody, you know, all the work I've done in prisons, you know, I'm a second chances, third chances, four chances guy. When you're on a redemption arc for real, when you've taken real accountability, when you've actually owned up and you and you and you have a track record, or at least you're honest about where you are in your process, my concern is he tried to polish this thing up.

I used to be one way, now I'm not. Well, you better be telling the truth about that. And it seems like he's not. And so now this party's got to look in the mirror. Do you want to sign off on the Donald Trump standard of behavior? You've got some other people who have very bad behavior in the other party. Is that now our standard in this party, or is it not? And I think people are going to have a tough choice in Maine.

[20:25:59]

CARLSON: And I mean, that's basically what I said was that I was saying it's about power and it's not about politics. I mean, if I didn't get in too much of an uproar, I guess not enough for David about Platner, but I mean, I am just as disgusted about his behavior as I am about Donald Trump or anyone else in the Republican or Democratic Party.

We should have people of conviction in both parties who can stand up and say, we will not tolerate this. This sends a horrible lesson to our children and to our culture and to our society moving forward. But we live in a whole new era since Donald Trump. We do; we live in a whole new era where a lot of this has been acceptable. And now we're having it on the other side, and we've had plenty of other cases, David. But then you need to call out Trump and his behavior at the same time.

JONES: And we have a Republican mayor's decision in Texas is also horrible.

URBAN: So, I just asked the question again, why do Democrats push Swalwell off the ledge and, and rally around Platner? I'll explain to you why, because in California, you can run any Democrat to win, and they'll just plug some other person in and they'll win.

In Maine, they're fearful that if somebody else runs, they're going to lose Susan Collins. So, they're willing to accept this terrible person who's lied at every part, every turn. He's lied about how his house is financed. He's lied about his business. He's lied about his tattoo. He's lied about his relationship with women. Everything he's done has been a lie. And so, he's got to go.

JONES: Yes, but look, I guess --

URBAN: Or if Susan Collins is going to beat him with a club in an election. JONES: Well, but I guess the problem that you have, if you're a Democrat and you listen to this, you know, you've got somebody who's running for Senate in Texas who was impeached by his own party for being a crook and the President of United States backed him and he won by a landslide.

So, it's hard for us to hear Republicans lecturing us and wagging their finger in our face about morals when you yourselves --

COOPER: When you start to hear a lot is like, well, I'm not electing a preacher.

JONES: Yes, exactly, right, you're listening.

COOPER: I'm not electing a pastor.

JONES: Yes, I'm not electing a Sunday school teacher. I'm electing a President. So, when that party starts wagging the finger in our face, it's kind of like, guys, we're talking, we're having a conversation over here. Fetterman is making a very strong important points, but it's hard to hear from Republicans.

COOPER: I want to ask you about just something that happened yesterday. Donald Trump going after Kaitlan Collins. I talked about it last night in the program. I didn't talk to Kaitlan about it because she shouldn't have to answer for this ridiculous, she's the ultimate professional and she doesn't let things faze her. And she just, you know, rolls with it and, and followed up with a great question that actually got a great, you know, really interesting answer on Todd Blanche and on this fund.

What do you make of what, you know, the President calling her out? I just want to play for viewers. What happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: These people, their lives have been destroyed. Their families have been destroyed. Many of them and I'm not just talking about a few people, many of them. I'm one of them, look, they raided my house, Mar-a-Lago. That never happened, nobody ever thought of a thing like that. It turned out that it was a total fake. Everything about it was fake and corrupt.

We have all the information, you know, the good advantage to sitting here is we can get information that you wouldn't get by what we have and what we are going to be showing over the coming weeks and months. You're not even going to believe, some of you will believe it, like CNN will believe it because they knew what was going on. They're crooked as hell. Yes, CNN's a very corrupt organization, but with a corrupt reporter standing right there.

Never smiles, never smiles, she's a young beautiful woman, never smiles. I never see a smile off her face. I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes, like she has hatred because we have borders. Because we have a strong military. Because we cut our taxes. Because we do things that everybody wanted. And then we win our election in a massive landslide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: And I mean, this is just one of many kinds of diatribes like this.

CARLSON: It's exasperating. He calls women "Piggy" it's always seems to be pretty much women, although --

COOPER: I mean, all those guys are glum face behind her.

COOPER: Well, and so are, so are all the other reporters. Look, instead of having another White House Correspondents' Dinner, they should all get together and have a meeting about how they're going to respond, when Trump says crap like that to women reporters. People just go along and ask the next question.

Now, I know today that that Kara Swisher was on "The View" and she said, well, that's the way it should be because we don't want to give him more attention by calling it out.

I respectfully disagree with that because by not calling it out, you're normalizing it in our culture, going back to the same discussion we just had, so young people watching this, they're going, oh, it's okay to call a girl horrible because she's beautiful, but she doesn't smile must mean she's not smart. Let's go back in time 50 years.

I mean, you have to call it out or it just becomes a part of the process and we can't just look at Trump and say, well, he's just an anomaly.

[20:30:59]

So culture is just going to finally catch back up when he's not in office anymore. It's not going to work.

It's not the way I'm raising my children. It's not the way I don't think the majority of Americans out there are raising their children. They're trying to raise them with respect and dignity for both boys and girls.

COOPER: Gretchen Carlson, thank you. Ben Jones, David Urban as well.

Coming up next, why is one of the world's leading AI companies warning the world might want to go a little bit slower on AI? Anthropic co- founder Jack Clark joins us to explain and talk about how much faster AI is improving and can increasingly train other AIs increasingly without human involvement.

Later, a mother and a father's plea for help finding their son who vanished without a trace while traveling with them in Japan. What they're saying about the circumstances surrounding his disappearance when our CNN global coverage continues. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [20:35:57]

COOPER: In Japan, a search is underway for a missing 20 year old college student from Alabama. Weston Higginbotham is his name. He vanished last Friday. The Auburn University student was in Kyoto with his family as part of a trip celebrating his younger brother's high school graduation.

Now, before Weston went missing, his mom says they bickered about ChatGPT and decided everyone needed some space. That's when he went out on his own and seemingly cut himself off from any attempt to find him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY HIGGINBOTHAM, WESTON HIGGINBOTHAM'S MOTHER: When he turned off his location and that was so concerning because it's so out of character for him and I just felt it.

KEITH HIGGINBOTHAM, WESTON HIGGINBOTHAM'S FATHER: It's mother's intuition. She kept saying something's not right.

N. HIGGINBOTHAM: I said something's not right. Something's not right. I knew something was wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: The family says Weston often likes to hike to blow off steam. He was last seen on surveillance video headed for a hiking trail. They're hoping he just got lost in the woods, say they'll stay in Japan until he's found.

Also a new announcement from Anthropic today is making news. Development of AI is moving faster than some had anticipated and Anthropic is finding that humans are needed less and less as AI is getting closer to effectively building more advanced versions of itself, writing its own code.

That's the warning from the Anthropic Institute, which they made some suggestions saying, quote, we believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up with the advance of the technology. But they say if a slowdown simply lets the least cautious actors catch up technologically, it could leave everyone less safe.

Anthropic goes on to explain this would require AI labs in multiple countries agreeing to stop under the same conditions or work under the same conditions. Jack Clark is an Anthropic co-founder and head of public benefit. He joins me now.

Mr. Clark, you said that we are turning toward an, quote, AI system capable of fully autonomous designing and developing its own successor, which is called recursive self-improvement, and that it could, quote, come sooner than most institutions are prepared for.

Let's start with what is recursive self-improvement exactly?

JACK CLARK, ANTHROPIC CO-FOUNDER: Industry, AI researchers has been to build systems smart enough that they could become a generally competent scientist and make scientific discoveries, one of which would be figuring out how to build better AI systems.

I think it's highly likely now that we're on the cusp of developing systems that are capable of just that. And they may come along in the next few years rather than decades, which is a lot sooner than I think people have been anticipating.

COOPER: The upside potential of this is huge, as is the potential risk of this. So let's talk about the upside. What is the benefit of this?

CLARK: So today, when we want to do good in the world in areas like biology or medicine or robotics, you have to take these systems that mostly exist as digital AI systems and adapt them into this complex domain in the real world. And you do that by pairing with scientists to do it.

Now, an AI system capable of improving itself is also capable of going into domains like medicine, going into domains like biology, discovering what it needs to get smarter and more capable and working with people to adapt itself to improve its performance there. So I think what we're seeing is the potential for a dramatic acceleration in science in the coming years as these AI systems gain this capability and become much more like creative co-scientists than tools that scientists use, which would be a big change.

COOPER: The downside, I mean, for anybody who's seen any science fiction movie, and I hate to be so sort of given my lack of science knowledge, a lot of it comes from science fiction movies. But and obviously, in all the science fiction movies, we give control to these machines. And obviously, we all know what happens. And the people who create them are the first ones who get killed. And then they run amok in human society.

What is that -- what to you is the risk here?

[20:40:04]

CLARK: Yes, we read the science fiction and watch science fiction here as well. So it's not lost on us. But this is how some of the stories start. And the risk here is what happens if you can't validate or verify or trust the behavior of these systems? It would be like if we dropped hundreds or thousands of new colleagues into your newsroom.

It would take you a while to figure out if you can trust them, if they work in the way that you expect. If when you ask them to do things, they come back with something that you think is good and in line of your expectations. That's one of the challenges here. How do you maintain control over -- over fleets of scientists that are much, much larger and much faster than ones you've had before?

COOPER: So Anthropic wants to see the industry as a whole come up with a way to essentially, in your words, slow or have the capabilities of slowing or temporarily pausing AI development to let society keep up with the advances. Is that right? Because what would that look like in practice? And how do you convince competitors to do that as well? Because obviously this is, you know, obviously it's been described as an arms race.

CLARK: So our view is we've built amazingly powerful technology. We're going to keep building it. And in the coming years, that technology is going to start to do a lot of major things in the world in domains like science. But when I look down at the car we're driving, all I have is a gas pedal. I don't have a brake pedal. And surely at some point in the future, we might want that option.

The option to say to ourselves, to other companies, to the world, what would it be like if we focus now on taking these scientific advances we've created and pushing them through to the world and take our foot off the gas of just accelerating the AI systems? How do you start? Well, you start by saying that this is something that you might want.

So we -- we've said this today because we think that it's important that companies are out here saying it would be nice to have that option. That allows us to talk with other companies, talk with governments and say, how would such an option come into existence?

And look, we've done this before in the height of the Cold War under highly tense situations between rivalrous countries. They found ways to stabilize aspects of the nuclear arms race. All of this has been done before in other domains. And it may need to be something we do in the domain of AI.

COOPER: It's incredibly fascinating. Jack Clark, I really appreciate the conversation. Thank you.

CLARK: Thank you very much.

COOPER: Well, up next, meet the Groypers, fans of far right streamer Nick Fuentes. They talked to Donie O'Sullivan about how they defend his inflammatory tactics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:47:00]

COOPER: Well, turning spotlight now to far right live streamer Nick Fuentes, who despite earning notoriety for loudly proclaiming offensive beliefs, often racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, it seems to be growing in popularity and in political influence, men, many young men. He refers to his listeners as Groypers. CNN's Donny O'Sullivan went to Miami to meet two of Fuentes' fans in person.

But it's what happened after the CNN interview that really surprised some. Here's Donnie with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I broke up with my last chick. She was a pain in the ass. DONNIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): So I've come

to Miami to meet Rich and John. They're both Groypers, the nickname given to fans of the far right streamer Nick Fuentes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like, we don't hate women. We just find feminism annoying.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Fuentes is known for his sexist, racist and antisemitic rants.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So when I first heard of him, I was actually in 2022 when him and Kanye went to visit Trump.

O'SULLIVAN: They had dinner at Mar-a-Lago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They had the dinner at Mar-a-Lago. And I heard he's just like this white supremacist Nazi. I was always skeptical of those accusations because I'm like, everyone gets called that nowadays.

O'SULLIVAN: What is it about Nick do you think that makes him so appealing to particularly young men?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a side of comedy like there's politics and it's kind of like Trump. You know, Trump is just genuinely funny. He's a funny guy and that's very attractive.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Fuentes fans tried to write his hate off as humor.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And sure, maybe he does stuff to be edgy and make jokes, but we're young. We just want to have fun. And with these older people, we want to get a rise out of them, especially these MAGA Fox News boomers. Like, we want to get a rise out of you.

NICK FUENTES, FAR-RIGHT POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I would just take away the right to vote for tons of people. Women, for sure.

O'SULLIVAN: How do you know when he's joking and how do you know when he's not? Because he says, like, women shouldn't vote. But that's not a joke, right? He means that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it's still a joke, though. It's like we're not going out of our way to repeal the 19th. You know what I mean? Like trying to get on people's skin.

O'SULLIVAN: But you're saying you don't believe that Fuentes believes that women shouldn't vote?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I think he does believe that.

O'SULLIVAN: You think he believes that they shouldn't vote?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

O'SULLIVAN: Do you think that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He probably does.

O'SULLIVAN: So he's not joking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, but he wouldn't do anything about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But we know that --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not trying to change that.

FUENTES: When I say women's rights, what -- what -- what do we obviously need to do? Take them away. This is just -- this is what everyone knows needs to be done.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): It seems that even among the groupers, it isn't always clear when Fuentes is joking and when he's not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think women should only be allowed to vote if they're married, because I think if they were married, they would vote with their husband.

O'SULLIVAN: Rich, do you think women should vote?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure. Let them vote. I don't have an issue with it.

O'SULLIVAN: You don't?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Let them -- let them vote.

O'SULLIVAN: You're charting some heads here, guys. That's for sure.

[20:50:00]

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Rich is 23. John is 25. Both came of age during the rise of Trump, COVID, the Me Too movement, and what many young men like them view as the excesses of cancel culture.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going Orthodox Church tomorrow. I don't know where the nearest one is.

O'SULLIVAN: Orthodox?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Orthodox.

O'SULLIVAN: Are you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, but I'm Catholic, but all my friends are Serbian.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe we'll go to a Catholic church tomorrow.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I can send you some if you want.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, really? What's your number?

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): These men have come to see themselves in Nick Fuentes. His cancellation across social media platforms for his spreading of hate, they view as part of a broader attack on men like them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you look at his audience, they feel like they can relate to him because they're young men. A lot of them can't get girlfriends. A lot of them are struggling financially. They're not going to have the life their parents had, their grandparents had.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shut up like nobody cares. You're not him, bro. You'll never be him.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Soon after I left Miami, pictures John posted of our interview on social media got Fuentes's attention and he wasn't happy. His followers had spoken to CNN.

FUENTES: How about that CNN thing? Oh, my gosh. These like two absolute chuds. Look at us. We're in our Nick Fuentes T-shirt and hat.

O'SULLIVAN: In online audio chats, Groypers began to turn on Rich and John.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't wait for this guy to be dodged and have his life ruined forever.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Rich and John did not want to be interviewed again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How's everyone doing tonight?

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But John posted a 30 minute video on social media where he tried to defend his Groyper honor.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I consider myself a Groyper and I know everyone's saying I'm not a Groyper and giving me death threats and telling me to kill myself and that they're going to rape me. And that's fine. I don't really care.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Even though Fuentes was mocking them.

FUENTES: Spilling to the CNN journalist, he's going to make them look like complete idiots.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Here was John still trying to placate the hate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To anyone that, you know, I might have offended or thought that I was trying to sabotage the movement. I am sorry.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And Donnie O'Sullivan joins me now. I mean, we saw how quickly, you know, Fuentes turned on his own followers. Why was he so quick to go on the attack here?

O'SULLIVAN: Yes, Anderson, I mean, I think it's pretty typical cult leader behavior. Nick Fuentes claims, as many of these far right figures do, to be, you know, supporters of free speech. But of course, when you see if anybody speaks out at all, not even speaking out of line, but speaks out and tries to take the attention, they get very angry about that.

I think also perhaps there's a concern there that, as you saw, you know, there's this idea of, well, all this hate is just jokes. Clearly, it's not very funny when it gets turned on the guys, as you saw there. But also, you know, with that, with the conversation about should women be able to vote, when like many conspiracy theory movements, this is what it sort of reminded me of.

Once you push at all, once you sort of go one or two follow up questions, you can see the whole thing falls apart and the guys don't even know what the joke begin -- where the joke begins or ends. And, you know, I think unfortunately, there's a lot of young men out there like Rich and John.

COOPER: Donnie O'Sullivan, I appreciate it. A reminder, an extended version of Donnie's reporting is available on CNN's app.

Up next, you're going to hear from a mom, Steph Tupper. Two of her three children were killed in a car crash four years ago. She has learned about grief and how she says grief has made her life both heartbreaking and sacred at the same time. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:57:59]

COOPER: Hey, in just about 17 minutes at 9:15 p.m. Eastern Time tonight, I hope you join me on my new streaming show about loss and grief called "All There Is Live." My guest tonight is Steph Tupper, her 16-year-old daughter, Ali, and her 14-year-old son, Joe, were killed in a car crash a few years ago, four years ago.

We welcome members of the all there is community to call and leave us voicemails about their loved ones. And I want to share with you what Steph had to say about the loss that she's experienced.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

STEPH TUPPER, MOTHER OF TWO TEENAGERS, ALI AND JOE, WERE KILLED IN A CAR CRASH IN 2022: Hi, Anderson, my name is Steph. I lost my 16-year- old daughter and my 14-year-old son almost four years ago. June 19th, 2022. Grief will quietly rearrange what matters most in your life.

Before losing Ali and Joe, I just spent so much time focused on achievement and productivity, appearances, awards, acknowledgement, validation and having a life that just felt urgent, like a to do list every single day.

After my kids died, I realized that nobody ever remembers your GPA or what college you went to, or the trophies that lined your shelves. They definitely remember how you made them feel. And I believe that even more now. Grief has made life feel both heartbreaking and sacred to me. At the same time, and my brain struggles to understand how that is even a possibility. But it is.

I feel everything so much more deeply and I see beauty so much more clearly. Our world needs people willing to witness grief and educate others about grief instead of looking away from it. Grieving people do not need fixing nearly as much as they just need to be witnessed and they just need to be seen.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

COOPER: Just need to be seen. I was so moved by what Steph had to say in that voicemail that she sent us. I want to hear more about her kids, Ali and Joe, and how she survived this unthinkable tragedy that happened four years ago.

[21:00:07]

Tonight, in 15 minutes, I'm going to talk to her on my streaming show, my companion show to my podcast. All there is live is the streaming show. You can watch and join the conversation in just 15 minutes. CNN.com/AllThereIs. Once again, that's 9:15 pm. Only watchable at CNN.com/AllThereIs. I hope you join me over there in 15 minutes.

That's it for us. The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now.